u/ac_ou_nt

On February 9, 2017, 80-year-old Barbara Nave vanished from her Sumter home leaving behind a nearly 10-year mystery.  Barbara was described as feisty, independent and a force to be reckoned with. At the time of her disappearance, she was working on her second doctorate while juggling a teaching job, teaching English and acculturation to employees at Continental Tire the Americas who came from overseas, and volunteering with the American Red Cross and a hospice. She was also described as an adventurous individual who had travelled extensively and raised her children in Spain. She is interested in art and used to breed, train and show dogs.

Barbara was last heard from on the day she disappeared. She spoke on the phone to her son and on the same day she also emailed a friend and spoke to a contractor. After that she vanished.

The day before she had returned home after visiting her son in savannah, Georgia.

The next day friends realized there was something wrong when one of them (Kathleen) went to her house on Tondaleia Drive off U.S. 521 and found the front door open and Barabara's purse lying inside, money and credit cards were still inside and nothing appeared to be disturbed.

Not wanting to call the police prematurely, Kathleen wandered around the property searching for her friend. Barbara’s car was still in her driveway like it hadn’t been moved recently, the windows rolled halfway down. There were no tire tracks on the dirt roading leading up to her house, suggesting her car hadn't been moved in a couple of days at least. Inside the house Barbara’s three dogs were left behind, without any food or water. Two of them were dehydrated whilst her third dog, which had been sick before Nave’s disappearance, was dead.

According to Bonner (lead investigator on the case), a construction crew working on Barabara's home and a neighbour were the last ones to see her, walking into the woods behind her house. They told investigators that she was looking for one of her dogs.

Her loved ones stated she would have never left her purse at home unless she was only going for a walk, and she normally, if she was, she always took her cherished Lhasa Apso dogs with her.

Deputies performed polygraphs on several people, including those who saw her last, but the results were always negative.

Police launched a thorough search of Barbara’s 20-acre property and adjacent woods,

complete with helicopters and cadaver dogs, but came up empty-handed.

Family members were also interviewed and given polygraphs, but ultimately no one was found to have any reason to harm Barbara.

Eventually, the case grew cold. Barbara’s house was boarded up, and her dogs were adopted by a neighbour.

This case has sadly slipped though the cracks and it has been mostly forgotten.

As of now Barbara Nave has been missing for about 9 years and a half and years and no updates have been given since 2018.

The case remains unsolved.

EDIT: there has been confusion in the articles I have read around the dogs. In an article that was stuck behind a paywall I found this pice of info witch I will link under " as Barbara's friend approached the house, she saw the door was open. Nave's beloved Lhasa Apsos waited near the entry way. It was apparent that they had not eaten or had anything to drink for several days. Nave's purse sat atop the kitchen counter"

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I got my info from:

·       https://charleyproject.org/case/barbara-nave

·       https://ncmissingpersons.org/barbara-nave/

·       https://wach.com/news/local/group-of-women-working-to-solve-sumter-cold-case

·       https://wach.com/news/local/group-of-women-working-to-solve-sumter-cold-case

On 27 July 2007, around 3:30 pm, a Fire Brigade intervened in the area of ​​Via della Pescaglia, in the Magliana district of Rome, to put out a fire (later ascertained to be very probably intentionally set) in a reed bed near the cycle path on the Lungotevere, not far from the Tiber (the largest river that passes through Rome). During the operations, a partially charred but intact skeleton was found in the burned brush. The remains included a skull with burn marks, some cervical, thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, an almost intact right femur, fragments of tibia and fibula, parts of a left humerus, several phalanges and metacarpals, as well as rib fragments and a partially damaged scapula. Next to the remains the police found a pouch/ cross body bag containing the identity card and house keys of a man named Libero Ricci.

Mister Ricci was a pensioner and a former craftsman decorator employed at a company that often worked with the Vatican. He was living in an apartment building near Via Rava when he disappeared at around 10:00 am on 31 October 2003 at the age of 77.

Further analyzing the skeleton, investigators could determine that it was wearing beige shoes, a blue jacket, a brown T-shirt and black trousers. Weirdly the clothing found on the bones, after it had been inspected by Mr. Ricci’s family, was reportedly not what he was wearing the day of his disappearance.

In 2010 amidst the droughts of the family authorities decided to test the skull against the DNA of the relatives and, shockingly, the results came back negative as the skull belonged to a female.

Finding the case ever more mysterious, investigators decided to test the other bones and found out that the bones turned belong to five different individuals, three women and two men, who died between 1989 and 2006. This discovery sparked many investigative hypotheses, including that of a possible serial killer or an individual with access to human remains.

The bones that made up the skeleton were:

M1: a 40-50 year-old man who died between February 2002 and October 2006.

M2: a 25-40 year-old man who died between February 1986 and October 1989.

F1: a 45-55 year-old woman who died between November 2002 and November 2006 and was loosely related to Libero Ricci on her mother's side.

F2: a 20-35-year-old woman, died between November 1992 and February 1998.

F3: a 35-45-year-old woman, died between April 1995 and December 2000.

 

Authorities considered several hypotheses to explain the presence of the human remains, including that of a serial killer or that the remains could have come from a cemetery or maybe stolen by a grave robber, although this hypothesis was ruled out because no traces of zinc or other metals used in the manufacture of coffins were found on the bones.

Another possible motive, although less credible, is that the bones found were linked to sects or esoteric rituals. This theory led to nowhere though and so was dropped.

Investigators also looked at the possibility that the skeleton was tied to the “Banda della Mgliana”, a mafia-like crime group operating in the area from the 60s up until 1999. The theory was dropped though due to the details not matching up.

What investigators could say though is that whoever arranged the skeleton had extensive anatomical knowledge as every bone was matched to where it would actually be in a human body, no bones misplaced.

Investigators were also led to assume that the bones were placed in that spot not long before the ignition of the fire as otherwise there would have been signs of scavenger animals moving them.

In 2024 further analysis of the case hypothesized that the bones of F3 could belong to a woman who disappeared in 1995; Magdalena Chindris (47 at the time of her disappearance).

Magdalena Chindris was born in Romania and moved to Italy at a very young age. She was reported to be a brilliant woman of high culture, a frequenter of the literary salons where she would find her first husband, who she would later divorce. Before her disappearance she would begin dating another man.

It was May 31, 1995, when Magdalena’s daughter Ester, then 22, returned home on Via Torino to find a ladder in the middle of her mother's room, the fan unplugged and fallen onto the sofa, a tie wrapped around the propellers, and bloodstains on the wall that looked like fingerprints. It would have been a textbook suicide, except for one detail, Magdalena's body wasn't on the floor, nor was it in the bathroom, the kitchen, or any of the other rooms. Her partner was in Florence, visiting his elderly mother, and was shocked to hear the news over the phone.

 

In the past tests have been performed on the bones to see if they cold match to other people who disappeared in the Rome area (one such case being Alessia Rosati who was 21 when she vanished in Rome in 1994), but nothing has been confirmed or found.

Speculations also tie this case to the mysterious goings on in the Vatican and the disappearances of Emanuela Orlandi and Mirella Gregori, to which Magdalena Chindris’ disappearance could also loosely be tied to. I didn’t include these speculations in the story though as they are mostly just that, speculations.

As of now neither of the whereabouts of Libero Ricci, Alessia Rosati or Magdalena Chindris are known, and nor are the identities of the bones.

i got my info from:

- https://www.chilhavisto.rai.it/dl/clv/Scomparsi/ContentSet-2169db59-8ceb-4868-b6b8-fc7b2960b5a7.html

- https://roma.corriere.it/notizie/cronaca/24_dicembre_28/il-caso-orlandi-e-il-collezionista-di-ossa-della-magliana-la-pista-di-magdalena-chindris-scomparsa-a-47-anni-nel-1995-41695524-832c-4211-b10a-da840ab95xlk.shtml?refresh_ce